Islam is a comprehensive political and religious system that represents a genuine threat to Americans, in a way that "Conservatism" never has. - Golden Boy

Islam as a comprehensize political and religious system does not represent any significant threat to us at all - in fact, the few places that come closest to that ideal are our nominal allies. The threat represented by violent Islamic radicals is miniscule, the total number of casualties they've inflicted is comparable to the number of Americans who die in traffic accidents every month. In contrast, modern Republicans are working directly towards a fundamental destruction of the United States. They want to overthrow our constitution and our most basic rights. They are firmly against almost every ideal in our Declaration of Independence. And they're in power. I consider them a far greater threat than Osama and all his cave-cowering cronies will ever manage.

I will assume that liberals don't want another terrorist attack in America.

But I won't assume that they will do as much as conservatives to stop it. - joe

I expect liberals to have far more efficacy than "conservatives" in this regard. The Republicans have bungled it at almost every step. Even now, their biggest pushes are in favor of techniques long since known to not work.

Maybe they could have used the money from that bridge to nowhere?

This is NOT a story about abortion in any way, shape or form; its a story about kid with REALLY BAD parents.

I have to opine that bad parenting is, in itself, tangentially related to certain abortion issues. As a number of other letter writers have mentioned, family notification laws are essentially based on a presumption of good parenting. But good parenting is not universal, and the people most likely to be affected those laws are not children with good families, and the laws are not going to improve their situation or their families.

This is theft, and should be treated as such. This should definitely be reported to the police. The thief admitted guilt. There's no grey areas here, and getting all wishy-washy isn't going to help you feel better as much as doing something about the fact that you were victimized. Seriously, every time we overlook an evil act we effectively contribute to the evil in the world.

Who's surprised?

I am. Specifically, I'm surprised they got caught like this, verifiably and on the record. While I don't expect the meme to spread much - those who don't want to hear it won't repeat it and the rest of us are, well, not surprised - I think the lengths the Republicans go to lie to us should be shouted from every hill.

I hope this post doesn't start any riots...

It's hard to start a riot with a strawman. We condemn mistreatment of women regardless of the cultural smokescreen. You're just upset because we won't tolerate it anywhere instead of giving you a pass to concentrate on the worst offenders.

P.S. Chas, 60K in 3 months? Did you drive to Tierra del Fuego?

Heheh, that threw me for a second, too. Read a little more carefully and you'll see it was bought used...

Using anti-abortion rhetoric to attack women's rights in general is nothing new. I can't help wondering if this was deliberate on some level - not necessarily the perp's, but perhaps his source of information?

Get his e-mail address and break the ice over that medium. It was practically custom made for introverts.

So, a young taxpayer in Japan who's never committed nor supported a crime is expected to shell out for something he had no responsibility over, no benefit from, and no way to possibly have done anything about? That's not justice.

I doubt there's a nation in existence that can't be hit up for reparations. I mean, is Germany being brought up for the holocaust now? Has everybody forgotten what happened after WWI? And if that precedent is set, are slavery and native american reparations next? You can make much better arguments that the descendents thereof - and indeed subsequent immigrants - benefit to this day.

Secondly, I'm detecting a subtle undertone in some of these letters. Sort of a: "Well, that's just so rude those guys pretty much _have_ to be Korean. I've got some Asian friends and let me tell the inside scoop on _these people_."

There's enough racism and "culturism" in the world that you don't need to go around making up stances people aren't taking just so you can attack the strawmen you've invented.

And, BTW, people do behave differently in different cultures, and what's considered polite or rude is not universal.

Profiling does not mean a simple visual inspection of folks in the security line at the airport, examining their name, skin color, beards, etc... -- Golden Boy

How nice of you to re-define the terms to your convenience after a couple pages of conversation based on a rather different definition. The sort of profiling you're advocating here is done and nobody particularly objects to it. You're attacking a strawman.

What intelligent people object to - and what this argument started over - is the all-too-common call to never screen caucasian-looking, sick, children, and/or elderly. Any such glaring security hole would almost certainly be taken advantage of.

"Islamic terrorism is currently a huge threat"

Yes, it is. Sure, there are other ways to die (perhaps an enraged environmentalist!), but we can certainly agree on this point. -- Golden Boy

I'm sorry, but it really isn't. It's blown way the heck out of proportion. If we ignored it altogether (I'm not advocating that) the difference in our death rate would not be noticeable. Terrorism as a cause of death isn't even a drop in the bucket.

Look for the GOP in general and the White House in particular to pull out the stops to cover their illegal actions before the next election.

Now compare this with the push to weigh fashion models. Only one weight allowed!

I just want to say that the phrase "...reason to believe to be sure that..." doesn't make any sense at all.