Make up your mind. Is Bush so on top of things that he could have stopped Osama at the snap of a finger or is he so inept that he couldn't stop him at all?

Both, of course. He was kept on top of matters and chose to ignore them rather than do anything - aside, of course, from dismantling the high-level anti-terrorism cabinet position and stopping the sharing of information between the FBI and CIA which could have stopped 9/11 from occurring at all.

And it didn't stop there. No, it never stopped. OBL is still at large and our military which ought to be on his tail is instead bogged down in a country that had nothing to do with 9/11. The 9/11 commission found that the actions we needed to pursue to prevent future terrorist attacks are not being done. Bush doesn't give a damn about stopping terrorism - never has, never will. His actions prove it.

...How often does it turn out that the clown is the kid's father?

Your logic is so tortured I don't even know where to begin. So, let me start with something pretty basic: Normal heterosexual men are going to fantasize about women no matter what they're taught, no matter what the cultural context is. They always have and they always will. If you have a problem with that, you're flat out delusional.

And, how do you justify those losses, not to a crowd of geeks, but your own struggling neighbors?

How do you justify hanging on to all your goodies to a billion truly impoverished people?

The fact is, I know many normal hetro guys (young, lusty ones, too) who don't fantasize about women they don't know because they find it disgusting and degrading both to themselves and to the object. Of course, most of those men have studied either psychology or theory, so they know how to analyze and interpret their own behavior.

And you believe that? Okay, yes, you're just delusional. Enjoy.

Firstly, proof?

I think that's a hypocritical demand coming from you, but sure. Single heterosexual men court women. QED. If there weren't a "plan" (in the loosest sense) involved, they couldn't do it (courting behavior is too complex to be entirely instinctive and/or spontaneous - or, most likely, entirely not). If there isn't an imagined scenario - AKA a fantasy - there can't be a plan. If the fantasy/plan didn't involve women, they wouldn't be heterosexual.

...I know many normal hetro guys (young, lusty ones, too) who don't fantasize about women they don't know...

They're either not normal, lusty hetero guys or you're misled about them - and based on your follow-up:

Of course, most of those men have studied either psychology or theory, so they know how to analyze and interpret their own behavior.

...I can fairly safely conclude that the reality is lost in the jargon.

What it does is illustrate how entrenched in our culture the notion of gender difference has become.

The article is quite explicit that the "spousal training" techniques work both ways, and are not in any way gender-based.

I think "bump" is pretty neutral. What would you suggest as an alternate term?

I'm rather enamored of the technologies working towards converting bulk cellulose into diesel, since that seems like a more general solution to making bio-diesel. Nonetheless, I think this idea of making use of "waste" products is great, and will probably have a place in whatever turns out to be the best answer.

How can you accuse me of dodging the issue while avoiding answering my question? My "struggling neighbors" are far better off than most of humanity. I suggest you stick with the argument from a later thread, wherein you quote somebody suggesting that the pain of the middle-class is not from the developing world so much as from the wealthy. That one's a winner. I'm still going to be on the record as thinking that developing a world-wide middle class is a good idea, and that education is the key, both here and abroad.

It's amazing what you can buy with enough money. Plutocracy, here we come...

We associate big business and the religious right because the Republican party purportedly stands for both of them. But in practice, they're very strange bedfellows. They try to make the bottom line a moral value (a very "Protestant-work-ethic" sort of idea), but when that conflicts with other socially conservative ideals, the gulf appears in stark contrast. Of course businesses want to attract the best employees, regardless of factors which are frankly irrelevant to productivity.

I hope we can all agree that flip-flops and sandals are not appropriate office attire for either gender. However, has anybody seen a man come to the office in flip-flops? Men's office uniforms are frankly a great deal simpler than women's, and so I think it's not surprising that women would need more guidance on the subject.

Seriously, it doesn't. :P

Does North Korea really have nuclear weapons? And, if so, how large are they, and would they actually go off? Last I heard, they've never tested one, and it's supposedly a lot harder to make a warhead-sized nuke than merely a testable device. And their long-range missile didn't work...

Sure, Kim's got the will. But a country that stifles all dissent is a bad place to try to find and harness talent.