It boggles my mind that such a simple question as "is it okay to hit a child?" can be met with such uncertainty.

The answer for those of you who got your rights and wrongs confused along the way, is "no, it's not okay to hit children."

Sheesh.

Since I'm so often critical of Cary's advice, I've got to come out and say he got this one exactly right. Hit it on the head. Bravo.

King, you are 100% spot on in this analysis. If I were the monkey, I would have picked Hawaii (the only undefeated team) and have them play USC (the best team) for the title. But I'm not. And I really wouldn't have been any more "right" than the BCS.

College football is both my favorite sport and by far the most broken. The only way to get this season right and have a legitimate Champion would be to have a playoff.

The only way that can happen is for something really unfair to happen first - and it's something you touched on. The 50-something teams that are the hangers-on, all those Sun Belt, WAC, MAC schools that few people follow, don't sell out their tiny stadiums and serve as nothing more than cannon fodder for the big programs to make their OOC schedules easier... they need to go. To their own division.

That would free up the big schools to have a playoff without having to share the revenue with the parasites. (as they see them.)

I looked at the pictures. After having them described here, I was expecting something salacious or tawdry. After seeing the pictures for myself and not just listening to Broadsheet's virulently anti-sex ramblings (yet again) all I can say is, is that all there is? Do you prudish members of society really get all bent out of shape over ~that?!~

And this isn't about feminism. This is about Puritanism posing as feminism. You people need to start looking at human sexuality as adults.

Once again, I cry out to Salon to publish a pro-sex, feminist blog for it's ~thinking~ readers.

1. As far as drugs in sports: we're IN the steroids era of football. Don't kid yourselves like you did with Big Mac and Sammy. Don't know if that make 16-0 less impressive or more impressive, but so long as the drugs are being discussed, don't ignore the purple 340 pound Tackle in the living room. Several Patriots are assuredly taking PED's, but so is all of their competition.

2. Outdoor Hockey on New Year's Day. My main thought was how far College Football has fallen. No way anybody else could have stepped in and claimed TV Sports time away from the bowl games on New Year's Day until the Powers That Be in college football handed it to them by sheer arrogance.

Firstly, I believe that a playoff will happen only when every single school and fan is cheesed off at the same time. And the only way that can happen is for the most hated team in America to win a title under the current system. And that's Notre Dame. Once ND wins a BCS Championship every President from every conference will pitch a collective hissy fit about how much ND didn't deserve to win it, and reform will follow. If it happens that ND *actually* doesn't deserve it, all the better.

Secondly, King may regard college football with about the same amount of respect that most of us give 6-7 year old soccer, but Pete Carroll is quickly establishing Hall of Fame credentials at USC. The man is a brilliant CEO of a program, equally brilliant as a tactician, and very likely the single best motivator in all of football. I understand the point about college and pro coaches not intermingling (with numerous examples of a guy being successful at one level, but not the other) but PC is as good as college coaches get. Presuming he can't take what he's learned since his last stint in the pros and be a successful pro coach is folly. While there's a chance he wouldn't be able to win (especially with Atlanta-level talent) there's no certainty of that. Football players like playing for him, and that's a really big asset as a coach.

If you're not within driving distance of a hospital, then home birth is a bad option. Of course, using that table saw if you're not within driving distance of a hospital is equally stupid.

Having said that, anyone who doesn't have to go to a hospital but chooses to is buying Snake Oil 2008. 300,000 people give birth every single day, and almost none of them have an MD present. A pregnant woman is not "sick." Giving birth is not a medical emergency. It's a normal, healthy event. There is nothing to fear here.

Medical professionals see every situation and consider what they need to do to make things better. The fact that doctors think we all need them all of the time is just part of being a doctor and seeing the world through those lenses. It's not their faults anymore than any other profession's similarly tainted perspectives (cops see crooks, investment bankers don't think you're investing enough, etc.)

Fun home birth fact: your baby will be exposed to less potentially infectious bacteria in your house than in a hospital. (Sick people are at the hospital, while you're essentially alone in your house inside the bacterial stew with which your bodies are already familiar.)

Please take into account also that the "In Rainbows" box cost 40 UK Pounds. So selling a certain amount at that price is slightly more impressive than selling cd's alone.