There's his statement a few months ago saying American GIs are "terrorizing" Iraqi civilians.

Hey, shooting old guys and planting weapons on their corpses isn't terror, it's more like a fraternity hazing. Didn't you do that when you were in school?

It's quite clear that some GIs have, in fact, terrorized Iraqi civilians (although at this point the Iraqis are doing a fine job of terrorizing each other while we watch). It's also clear that some GIs are keeping their heads down and just trying to survive another patrol. As with Vietnam, or pretty much any war, the exact number of each will probably be a mystery for all time.

Just noting the exceedingly large number of non-subscriber right-wing talk radio listeners who just happened to "wander through" in time to say how much they like the article and wish we could all be like Camille, that is, doormats.

Can we please get that subscriber-only filter for the letters column going? Life is too short to deal with astroturf.

Having spent some years studying and working in laboratory situations, and being conversant with the work of Thomas Kuhn, thank you.

The point is that you assume because we need steel (to pick one from the list) now, we will always need steel, we will always need the same amount of steel, and we will never find a way of making it that doesn't involve many megawatts of electricity.

The last is of course demonstrably untrue, since the industrial-scale manufacture of steel dates from 1855 or so. Current steel manufacture is based on cheap electricity...but by choice, not because there are no options.

But that's really beside the point. In a generation nanotech-produced carbon fiber--or some other seemingly exotic material we haven't even heard of yet-- will supplant steel (and aluminum, and titanium) in virtually all its uses. Or perhaps not--neither you nor I nor anyone else here knows for sure. What we DO know is that blindly basing our energy policy (or ANY policy) solely around a linear projection of current usage types and needs is a classic case of short-sightedness, and one not supported by the paradigm shifts (see, told you I read Kuhn) of the past two centuries.

Whether it's making steel or even NEEDING steel...I recall that physicists in the 1800s proved that the Earth could be no older than 30,000 years, given the amount of coal the sun had to be burning.

Our civilization is not based on particular technologies, nor has it ever been. Only our current economy is. And that crucial difference is usually lost on those more heavily invested in the latter than the former.

Anyone else put a response in here yesterday and not have it show up until today?

But a couple of observations--

Halloween hasn't been a kids' holiday for a generation, since trick-or-treating was torpedoed in most places by urban myths. And they stopped letting kids wear masks, or costumes, at school parties. Or having school parties. It's as if while slowly squeezing the fun out of the holiday for children, we have appropriated it for ourselves.

The old Celtic "holiday" of Samhain was a sort of combination harvest festival and day of ancestors, it seems, and probably not nearly as sexy as other significant days of the year. Even among neopagans, who tend to be pretty comfortable with things sexual and festive, it's a pretty somber observation.

Where I work, we have a costume day at Halloween every year, and have since I started in 1998. The most popular costume for woman now is the same it was then: pumpkins.

It's hard to make a pumpkin sexy. It's like a Halloween burqa.

At any rate, I believe that the actual cause for the skimpy outfits is not just that it's a day for gender play or whatever nowadays, but that it is and has been for years a night for adult parties. Costume parties, sure, but parties for grown-ups nonetheless.

Do people have a problem with women wearing sexy clothes to parties? Or only if they're silly too, and it's October?

My wife and I were on the verge of starting IVF after an extended period of trying for a pregnancy without success. Then three things happened in short succession:

1) She ditched a job that had been driving her crazy for a year.

2) Her doctor removed a small, non-cancerous "dangly bit" from her uterus (don't you love those techincal terms they learn in all those years of school?)

3) She got tied to a Maypole at a Pagan festival.

Soon thereafter, she conceived without the drugs. You may decide for yourself which, if any, of the above events had something to do with it.

If stress can make someone sick, or sicker, why on earth should it be expected to have no effect on someone with borderline fertility?

What - does he think that the world of international terrorism, fascism and 21st century warfare is a frigging FANTASY ROLE-PLAYING GAME?????

Nah, good RPGs require depth of character, nuanced understanding of ethical and moral behavior, and above all, intelligence on the part of the players.

Santorum and the GOP do appear to like some board games, though. Monopoly, Risk, Trouble...unfortuantely, they seem to be missing their copy of Clue.

...the answer to "How long will US troops be there" is "at least ten years after there is any substantive reason for them to."

Don't confuse the mission of the US military with the foreign policy of the Commander-In-Chief.

I'll stop if he will.

Extremely amateurish, Mr. O'Hehir, and disappointing, given the usual quality of your work here. Please make at least a vague stab at supporting your assertions in the future, or clearly labelling them as pure personal opinion. Saying "I'm sorry, 12 Monkeys fans, but despite the general acclaim I still think it's crap" isn't all that hard, now is it? And you don't come off like a 12 year-old.