"So the family court mediators, and the child psychologists all said we should share the kids 50/50.... Mom had to

move the kids out of state, and then later on kidnap the kids, and then make a phony allegation of abandonment against me and get an ex-parte TRO (which was later overturned) before she was able to get the kids on a 70/30 basis.

At every hearing, the court psychologists all said things like they should share custody", "there is no evidence to support any of the mother's accusations".

In the meantime, I pay all the support and several hundred extra each month for various extracurricular activities, music lessons, horseback riding lessons, and things like that.

So it's working it's way through the system."

This is not a teenager in a basement, this is some dude being kicked around by the system. I am actually sympathetic.

But the level of anger and vitriol, well, you can see why he isn't doing so well. A little more gentleness and christian-type forbearance might get you a little farther, dude. Let go of some of the anger maybe. Your children need your love, not your heroism, let it go.

Well you still get some from me. Call me on anything you like.

I am not aware that I am particularly privileged, wrong-headed, or offensively assuming. Please share how I am, I actually sincerely want to know.

But anonymous dude, you are so very angry, so enraged, that I am not sure how to talk to you. I think you have some pretty good reasons to be pissed off, but you are letting it own your whole life, and I think it isn't making any part of your life better.

Some fundie politician from the sticks in a third world country says something stupid? This is noteworthy?

This is an idiot, even in his own environment's terms, and why is anyone paying any attention to him?

Well, having lived a long time in traditional Islamic countries, my impression has been that sexcrimes probably are rarer. Certainly economic crimes are. (Tho not intolerant persecutions, to be sure.)

1. Marital Rape: I don't think this is exclusive to any society, nor is there any way of assessing one society against another on it.

2. FGM is not a particularly Islamic issue, it happens in Egypt and Sudan and East and West Africa, but not in most of the Arab world, south Asia, or Indonesia, so you don't really need to tar them with that particular brush (and in any case, FGM is a crime that women are deeply implicated in: it is usually mom or an aunt who is inflicting it, not dad or a husband).

3. Honour killings are a bit of a desert tribal custom: Saudi, Jordanian, Iraqi. Not sure if they are relevant to Indonesia (I could be wrong here).

4. Blood-geld: pretty common in many societies, especially those with feud traditions, including our own for many centuries.

5. That would be called a shotgun wedding, and it is not exactly unknown in "Christian" societies.

6. Actually, in Saudi they are much more likely to toss red dye on you rather than stone you for wearing a miniskirt. Not good, to be sure, but stonings for provocative clothing are pretty rare, even in medieval theocracies like Iran.

7. Not being allowed to vote and being punished for trying are two different things. Even in Saudi, nobody has been violently punished for driving, and women have done it en mass in protest. And nobody at all gets much of a vote anyway.

8. Rejecting an arranged marriage? Happens all the time. Mostly with few consequences. Do you think Islamic moms & dads love their daughters (& sons) less than Christian parents do? Generally, forced arranged marriages are more common as you climb the economic ladder: this happens to princesses, not paupers; essentially the amount of money on the table is the determining factor.

9. Not sure where you got this one from, generally being violent on your wife because she is unsatisfactory in whatever way, but I rather doubt that it is an Indonesian or Islamic monopoly.

My impression from living in Islamic countries is not that they don't recognize sexcrimes as being crimes, but rather that they perhaps do so too much: the consequences of being legally declared a rapist are so dire that they tend to be very reluctant to convict on anything other than a ironclad case.

And in any case, these are human beings who love their families just like you do, not warped evil space aliens because they read the Koran.

I still think that on high volume routes, passengers ought to be offered the option of lite (ie pre 9/11 level) or even no security at all flights. I bet they'd sell out in a second.

I honestly don't think that I have read a Salon comments stream that has made me laugh out loud as many times as this one did. I especially love the trolls' pathetically ridiculous attempt to divert to their usual hobbyhorses.

Since I don't have one, it isn't a problem I've had to struggle with. But anything you want to call it is fine with me. Especially if I get to make a closer acquaintance with it.

But I too might just give it up for Bill.

So naturally I'm going all republican, because I am jealous of Hill. I want to share a cigar with the guy, you know what I mean? So obviously she has to be kept out of office.

(If it weren't for term limits the guy would get elected in a heart-beat, and that knowledge burns republican asses more than anything else. I do worry that with Hillary we are just opting for a faux Bill, but what choice do we have?)