I'm sorry. I like Obama. I voted for him, I contributed heavily to his campaign, and I think that he has vast potential to do something entirely worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize, but he simply hasn't yet. I really think the "menschy" move here would be for him to turn down the prize on that, very simple, ground.

If you disagree, and I know many of you do, I urge you to have a look at the other nominees and investigate their contributions. As a worthy example among many, have a look at Greg Mortenson.

I agree with Joan that he needs to "live up to his award," but it would have been nice if, until he did, the Nobel committee had chosen to honor one of the worthy individuals who have already made remarkable contributions to the cause of peace.

It's interesting to see the usual "guy pathetically chases after attractive, disinterested girl" trope in romcom inverted.

Getting married costs very little, you can easily for it for a couple hundred bucks (like my wife and I did). Everything beyond that is putting on a big show, be it for you, your family, your friends, or your community. No one needs $8000 to get married, and anyone that wastes $30,000 they don't have on attention whoring and narcissism deserves the unpleasantness of the ensuing debt.

Not really, no. In fact, it'd be kind of nice to see more entertainment that realized there are plenty of kids that DIDN'T do that. It's fine to show the "drunk and horny" crowd, but there were plenty of kids that weren't in that crowd to.

If ever an SC bench needed some liberal counterweight, this is the one. I'm not at all comfortable with Souter being replaced by someone that comes across as wishy-washily centrist as Satomayor. I hope she surprises me.

After reading these letters, they sound like an ideal means of finding out who around you is a shallow, snobby asshole.

and don't understand people that get hostile about footwear. I didn't even notice corcs until a couple of years ago, at which point my response was something like "huh, those are odd."

My footwear of choice remains sneakers, but what do I care what other people wear on their feet?

Genetics do not predetermine beliefs. Upbringing influences belief, but many of the most ardent atheists I know are products of deeply religious homes. In short, "religious people reproduce a lot" does not automatically lead to "another religious dark age is imminent."

Which is not to say you guys aren't trying really hard to make it so anyway.

Ironically, if that does happen, all this suffering-extension technology will die along with secular society and secular science/medicine. At that point people like you will be able to console yourselves that 5 month old preemies died because "there was nothing you could do" and "god mean it to be" rather than having to make tough moral choices like parents do now.

Life extension and life preservation technologies create terrible, terrible situations sometimes. Maybe we'd be better off in that hypothetical dark age you describe. At least we wouldn't have to listen to holier-than-thou ignoramouses like you disparage emotionally shattered parents for trying to do the right thing.

I have no idea what you're blathering about (though it sounds threatening, which is always funny coming from someone that claims to value life). We're talking about discontinuing forced life support here, abortion has nothing to do with it.

that our cultural fear of death has resulted in pain and suffering of this sort being enshrined into standard medical practice. Be it a terminal patient forced to live in pain for weeks or months or a debilitatingly premature child forcibly resuscitated to "enjoy" a brief "life" of hardship and pain, we as a culture really need to place more of a priority on QUALITY of life and a bit less on quantity.

but is anyone else concerned that we seem to be getting a little obsessed with this moron?

It's just that most of us contentedly married types don't really have any compulsion to scream at people about it, unlike many of the "happy" single folks. Not to imply one can't be happily single (or happily in any of a variety of other combination types, for that matter) but if you feel the need to tell everyone how great it is to be X constantly, and how insane it is to be anything other than X, you're probably not all that happy being X no matter what X happens to be.

is just something we have to suffer through, I think. It is, in it's own sad little way, a sign of progress. You couldn't have seen a movie like this WITHOUT the higher profile and greater acceptance that gays are (slowly, painfully) finding these days. It'll die off in time, until then just do your best to ignore the painfully unfunny dreck.

is nothing new. With Michael dead they're now free to exploit his kids as well (something that, maladjusted as he was, he went to extremes to avoid). It's sick and sad that they would use her grief for their own purposes.

That said, you're playing right into their greasy hands with this piece.

They've been exploiting kids since the early '70s, and doing so made Michael into the absolute train-wreck he became. It's no surprise they're trying to do the same to his children...

I disagree with him on most of what he said, but at least it was thoughtfully written and respectfully put. THAT could start a dialogue, it's certainly worlds better than the insult-laced talking points list that is the actual article here.