Why is it lauded by feminists and society when it goes to a charity but generally looked down on by the same people when it goes to a woman's personal goals - be they raising a child, going to school, or just living a comfortable lifestyle?

Y'know, I'm all for strippers, but I still think that's just a stupid question.

I don't think it's the nature of desire which forces us to work long hours. Leisure is desirable, too. No, it's the nature of competition that drives us to never shorten the workweek, no matter how efficient we've become.

Capitalistic competition has driven productivity to heights undreamed of in the middle ages. But competition by it's very nature is insatiable in the long run; not the individual workers, but the system and the few at the top (who really are insatiable, else they wouldn't be so rich yet scrabbling for even more). And the need of the system for ever higher productivity means that it squeezes its workers as much as it can get away with. It has to; that's a simple, direct consequence of trying to do as much as possible with as little as possible.

The sword has two edges. It has brought us great wealth, but it will never let us rest.

Is he deserving of our enmity or does he get somewhat of a pass considering the political realities he faces?

Anybody who votes for the torture of innocents deserves our enmity. Period.

If it's really, really "meant to be," you'll find a way to work things out together. -- fwtini

...Which you unilaterally prevented from being possible. You didn't want it to be. Which is fine, but don't deny it by hiding behind "safety". Have we really come so far only to be bound by the exact same calculus described in all those Jane Austen novels?

"There are a lot of people (at these seminars) who believe in aliens, and all these beautiful women who will have sex with you even though you're a dork," he said. "And that's why most people were there." - Abdullah Hashem, via Wired article by Kristen Philipkoski

Okay, now I am interested. 8)

What a complete non-sequitor; Andrew Leonard posts essentially in support of free trade and you conclude that makes him communist? Do you have even the most basic grasp of what that term means?

Criticism and/or support of minor issues does not mean or imply satisfaction with larger issues.

I've long thought I was the only person who felt that pollution amounted to public subsidy of private profit and should therefore be taxed or otherwise restricted on the very principles of fair trade and capitalism.

I find the assertion that Hollywood ignores women as an audience to be patently absurd. It's not men patronizing all those chick flicks - at least, not men who aren't being dragged there, by-and-large.

Of course the pages must be at least 16. The Congressmen wouldn't want to do anyone illegally!

What parent could possibly believe that their child could go to Italy, visit museums, etc. and not encounter nude scupture and art? - luckycat

An extremely sheltered individual. Many Christians in the U.S. are doing everything in their power to produce ignorance in their offspring - and some of them have been at it for a very long time.

Why does seeing nudes at a museum make someone sophisticated? I'll bet the nudes were all female. - Kirby

You could have avoided making yourself seem extremely unsophisticated by viewing some nudes at a museum through the links provided. In case that was too complicated a sentence for you, what I'm saying is that the nudes were most definitely not all female.

Drop the BMI nonsense. A more worthless statistic is hard to imagine. BMI says almost nothing about percent body fat, lean muscle, fitness, proportions, or even health. There are limits to how far you can stretch the BMI and still be healthy, but the numbers described by LeCastor in these letters don't even come close to those limits.

Where the heck do you go conventions, Tom? While skiffy's retain the shyness typical of nerds, and wargamers embrace militaristic themes by nature, I find your description woefully out of tune with my own experience. And I live in a right-wing city...

Why can't the "progressives" admit that the party to blame is Kim?

There's not a progressive alive - or practically anybody else for that matter - who doesn't blame Kim. But his faults don't exonerate anybody else from their own failings.

Laurel, did you (and your supposed engineer husband) not consider the effects of pressure at all? Or the fact that cooling in space is radiative only and therefore much slower than cooling in a gas (which in turn is much slower than cooling in a liquid, as anybody who's jumped into cold water can testify)? Anyway, BSG did their homework:

Say for example somehow a certain volume of liquid water @ T = 77 °F and @ P = 1 atm were to be magically placed into space where T ~ 4 Kelvins and P = vacuum. The liquid all of the sudden will have no pressure surrounding it. With the sudden lack of pressure the volume of water would explosively boil off into water droplets. Shortly thereafter, the water droplets will freeze. Why would not the block of water just instantly freeze? In space, matter does not cool or heat the same as it does on the ground. The ability of space to transfer heat is limited. There is no CONDUCTIVE, or CONVECTIVE heat transfer (since these first two methods require physical contact w/ the cooler matter)...there is only RADIATIVE heat transfer.

-Darin Wagner

"Water State in Space", Ask a Scientist

OK, I know it doesn't, but people often confuse the Rhythm Method with Fertility Awareness (a.k.a. Natural Family Planning) - which DOES! WORK!

...Mostly.

FYI, NFP, unlike the pill or plan B, works by killing fertilized embryos.