I've canceled my Salon subscription. I'm just fed up with paying for this idiot's incoherent verbal diarrhea.

Luckily, I averted my eyes in time, having caught the author's name.

Every time this idiot writes something on this site, I ask the editor to stop publishing her. Seems like the vast number of letters to the same effect is not moving Ms Walsh to take action. One just has to wonder what kind of personal relationship exists that allows this ignoramus full use of Salon's prestige to unleash upon the world her raging intellectual pablum... Ms Walsh, stop pushing this idiot onto us. We deserve better.

Is that even the most liberal Jews in Israel will never talk about Palestinians unless the words "dog" or "swine" is involved. Racism is endemic in the debate, yet the western media always attempts to paint the conflict as simply one of territory and politics.

It's about skin colour, religion, and power. Politics has nothing to do with it.

About this article is that Mr Bacevich has skipped, in his section on American mistakes during the "American Century", over the rape of Latin America (he mentions Cuba, but that is all). If the involvement of America with the mujahidin in Afghanistan can be said to be a core cause of 9/11, the rape of Latin America can be said to be the source of another issue which Americans love to complain about: illegal immigration.

Should actually read the people he criticized before writing a whole book about them.

St Augustine and Thomas Aquinas are NOT the foundation of Christianity as experienced by the vast majority of believers. They are elite thinkers, who have attempted (and failed. in my opinion) to reconcile faith and logic. 99.99999% of believers could not quote a single argument from either author, much less articulate their faith with anything near that kind of clarity.

And it is the faith of the common believer that has the most impact on society, not the self-congratulating intellectual masturbation of ivory-tower "theologians". And so it is completely valid to ignore that entire intellectual cesspit altogether.

Ms Svoboda fails to do a number of things:

1. distinguish between valid treatment approaches (like ABA), and invalid ones (like chelation). The most vocal of "parents" are too often those, like Jenny McCarthy, who advocate dangerous undemonstrated "treatments" which are more likely to hurt than help.

2. distinguish between the level of animosity amongst neurodiversity advocates to ABA (which is light) compared to that against that against the quacks (like McCarthy).

3. She forgets that the largest Autism-oriented societies not only ignore so-called high-functioning autistics and peopls with Asperger's syndrome, they actively seek to silence them. "Autism Speaks", for example, refuses to allow any autistic person to speak; quite a funny situation....

And calling non-autistic people "Neurotypicals" is simply accurate, and is *not* insulting. On the other hand, the word autistic implies that we are incapable of considering other people, which is false. We often lack empathy, not sympathy. So I would submit that the word "autistic" itself is insulting in a way.

Gibson's father left the Catholic Church of his own free will, and his son followed him. If Gibson is not Catholic, it's because THAT'S THE WAY GIBSON HIMSELF WANTS IT.

If he were to repent, accept Vatican II and the authority of the Pope, I am pretty sure the Church would accept him back. But that would mean to drop the Blood Libel, and that is something the Gibson family simply cannot do. And that, my friend, is an absolute pre-condition for re-admission into the Church.

Otherwise, it would be like people calling themselves American, but calling the President a usurper (oops, that's right, there's quite a few wingers who do exactly that...). You have the right to think that, but then you wouldn't be an American. An American who disagrees with the President would attempt to elect someone else. A Catholic who disagrees with the Pope can decide to leave the Church; every Catholic is entirely free to do that (I have).

Mel Gibson is NOT a Catholic, but a "traditionalist". His cult broke from the Church over Vatican II, not because of the Latin Mass (that's the pretext), but over the Blood Libel. You see, the Gibson family are REALLY anti-Semitic, and I mean REALLY (like: the Holocaust never happened, anti-Semitic). Since they refuse to accept Vatican II, they cannot properly be called Catholic in any sense.

And since he really belongs to his own religion, made up pretty much of only his own family, he can get divorced as much as he wants to.